The air crash that killed entrepreneur Steve Fossett, famed for his daredevil aerial feats, was probably caused by downdrafts that exceeded the ability of his small plane to recover before slamming into a California mountainside, federal safety officials said on Thursday.
Fossett, 63, disappeared on Sept. 3, 2007, after taking off alone from a Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton for what was supposed to have been a short pleasure flight. His Bellanca 8KCAB-180, a single-engine two-seater known as the “Super Decathlon,” which sometimes was used for acrobatic flying, crashed near Mammoth Lakes, California.
An extensive, high-profile search failed to turn up any clues to his fate. A year later, on Oct. 7, 2008, a hiker found some of Fossett’s belongings, including a pilot certificate and an identification card. An aerial search located the wreckage about a 800m away at an elevation of about 3,048m.
At breakfast on the day of the accident, Fossett told the ranch’s chief pilot that he intended to fly along Highway 395, and he did not plan to wear a parachute, which would have been required for acrobatics, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report.
No emergency radio transmissions were received from Fossett, nor were any emergency locator transmitter signals received.
After the wreckage was discovered, a review of radar data from September 2007 revealed a “track” that ended 1.6km northwest of the accident site, the report said.
The radar track initially was dismissed in the search for Fossett because an employee at Hilton’s ranch had reported seeing the Bellanca in a different location at about the time of the radar track, the report said. It was later determined that the employee’s time estimate of the sighting was off by about an hour, the report said.
The radar track shows what is now believed to have been Fossett’s plane flying south the along a crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The track started about 56km south-southwest from where he had taken off that morning and continued roughly parallel to Highway 395 about 16km to the west of the road. The first few minutes of the track indicated an altitude of about 4,419m to 4,541m, the report said.
“The remainder of the track consisted of primary returns with no altitude information,” the report said.
Based on its investigation — including weather reports, interviews with other pilots who flew in area that day and an examination of the wreckage — the board concluded the Bellanca probably was unable even at full power to climb out of what likely were powerful downdrafts.
Wind gusts in the area can whip up without warning from any direction, with sudden downdrafts that can drag a plane clear to the ground.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS